Tears

I’ve been living a roller coaster of emotions since the first of the year. Maybe more of a whirlwind because a roller coaster denotes ups and downs … and there really haven’t been any ups. Just times that are less down than others.

I’m plugging away at some last assignments for one of my classes that need to be turned in next week, and I still need to study for Finals in all three of my classes. At least I’ve been able to complete several major projects/papers and get things turned in on time. Sadly, though, I’m not expecting to see the greatest grades out of this quarter, but at least I know I’ll pass everything.

It’s difficult to work on school in the midst of heartbreak. I miss my son so very much. But sadly I’ve discovered over the past couple of weeks that he wasn’t the young man I’d thought he was. He was pretty much living a double life. He’d very successfully pulled it over on me and his sisters (and everyone else we know, too). But little by little things have come out and it appears he’d been hiding things (bad things, illegal things even) from us for years. Yes, for years. No wonder he started having emotional problems. It has to take a toll out of someone to hide themselves continually from the people you live with and are closest to. At least we thought we were close to him … evidently he was miles away even though living in the same house with us.

The sweet little boy I once held in my arms is gone now … and an angry young man I’ve never known has taken his place. And refusing to have contact with me or his sisters. My heart is broken beyond anything I thought possible. For a brief moment back in January I thought I was gaining a new daughter (my son’s girlfriend) but that all fell apart for reasons I can’t even begin to fathom … and now it appears I’ve lost my only son.  Short of a miracle, I can’t see this resolving itself in any good way.

Sometimes I just try to swallow all the pain and heartache, and just keep trying to put one foot in front of the other to meet my responsibilities and keep up with life. But all I really want to do is to curl up in a ball and cry for about a year.

Please keep me and my family in your prayers.

Please keep me and my family in your prayers …

Just surviving this quarter at school has been so tough.  Seems like everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.  And still keeps going wrong.  I really love all three of my classes, but it’s been so difficult to enjoy them and get out of them what I wanted from them.  Fingers crossed that my final grades won’t reflect how truly awful the past two months have been or it could mess up my hopes for grad school.  Hopefully one quarter with a glitch in my grade point won’t kill everything.

Please pray for me and my family.  Things just keep getting worse and worse.  And now I have finals coming up and several papers due … but I can hardly even see to type this through the tears, much less think clearly enough to write something that makes sense.

Update of sorts …

Hope everyone is having a nice 2013.

Mine has been eventful and heartbreaking … trying to figure out how to share or what to say here but it’s just too overwhelming and weird to put into words.  I’m not even certain myself what all has happened.

The short version of it is that my son is no longer living at home and not really in contact with anyone in the family anymore (with no end to the estrangement in sight).  It’s all super messy and tied up with a number of things … everything from various deceptions … and assorted people with mental illnesses … and lies … and confusions … to … oh gosh, a whole slew of other weird things.

If my family and I are on your prayer list, please continue praying.  We’re sort of in the midst of a calm in the storm right now, but at any moment things could change and get super intense, scary, and confusing again.

I’ll keep trying to decide if there’s a way to share what’s been happening … but I don’t want to share stories that aren’t mine tell, or to reflect badly on the parties involved, or to put myself or my immediate family in danger.  It’s funny (sort of) how just when it seemed like life couldn’t really dish out anything new that would surprise me, it surprised me.

I’ll be a bit scarce for awhile …

Between the university classes I’m taking starting back up this week and some serious events happening in our family, I don’t imagine I’ll be online for awhile. I don’t want to become one of those people who just keeps popping in with cryptic messages alluding to difficulties, but I honestly can’t talk about what’s happening … it’s not my story to tell.

Good thoughts, prayers, peace, whatever you want to send our family’s direction is appreciated.

Love to you all … hope your New Year so far is less “exciting” than mine has been.

Wow … 2012 is almost over!

My cat, Friday, has his own Facebook page now! Just click on the photo to come by and visit!

Amazing how time flies when you’re busy.  Sorry I’ve been so scarce here on the blog.  I’ve heard from several of you through private email that you’ve been a little bit concerned but had also assumed I was just super busy with school, etc.  Busy is probably the best word for it.  I decided to give a super quick update since I was here on my blog anyway adjusting the settings.  I returned to the original blog format with the walking bridge at the top because it just never quite feels like my blog when I have it set with any other theme or photo.  Maybe I’ll post more often if it looks like my blog again to me.  :-)

My first quarter at the University of Washington is finished and I have an official transcript now.  And a real UW grade point average, as well.  Two classes ended with 4.0 grades and the third was a 3.8.  I was more than pleased.  :-)  The adjustment from community college to the university wasn’t nearly as difficult as I’d imagined and evidently I’m a good student in either place.  Made me feel like this ol’ brain is still functional and firing on all cylinders.  ;-)

My favorite class Fall Quarter was Renaissance Europe.  I enjoyed it so much, I almost wanted to change my major to European History!  But I’m going to stick with things the way they are at the moment for my undergraduate work, but I think my intended Master’s level studies have taken a bit of a shift.  Which is actually very exciting.  :-)

Amid classes and homework of mine, our family was hit with quite a bit of health issues the past few months.  We’re on a first name basis with several healthcare providers now which isn’t something I really wanted to have happen … the hit to our finances was difficult just before the holidays and I had no money to shop for my family for gifts.  But grandparents and others helped fill in the vacancies under the tree.

Speaking of Christmas, the stomach flu has been making the rounds through our house the past week.  I got hit with it violently very early on Christmas Eve morning.  We ended up having to cancel out on our Christmas Eve plans with my extended family and Christmas Day was rather quiet and lonely … everyone high-tailed it out of the house to avoid my germs … but sadly, that didn’t protect them.  About every 48 hours another one of us took ill, so it’s been an icky week of clear liquids and plain crackers.  I finally ate a real meal today for lunch — my first solid food since Sunday evening!  Not the best of Christmases this year, sadly, but at least we’re pretty flexible about celebrations and traditions.

My oldest daughter’s fiance’ graduated from Western Washington University earlier this month, so as soon as he’s able to find a job, they’ll start making definite wedding plans.  It seems they’ve been saying “We’ll make plans after he graduates” for a long time (two years, actually) … but now the graduation has occurred, he’s moved back to the area, and the job hunt is about to commence!  They’ve both been commenting that it’s finally dawning on them now after so long of waiting that they’re actually going to get married sooner rather than later!  I’m happy for them both.  If you think about it, pray he finds a good job ASAP.  The job market is difficult right now … hopefully there’s a company out there looking for a smart, hardworking, recently graduated philosophy major.

No big plans for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.  Just hoping we’re all on the road to recovering from this nasty bug by then.  My son just started having the stomach flu symptoms earlier today and he’s the last in the house to get sick, so I don’t suspect we’ll do much the next week or so — it’s taken me the better part of a week to get better and I’m still not completely well, so with everyone else at various stages behind me in this, we’ll be juggling sickness for another week.

I’m hoping to spend some time working on my blogs and getting things set up online to function a bit better while I’m in school Winter Quarter so I don’t vanish off the face of the internet again.

Hope you’re all having a happy holiday season!

Blessings,

Debi

Corrected Twitter account …

I just realized that I’ve had the wrong Twitter account linked to my various blogs for about a year.  Oops!  Duh.

If you’d like to receive the occasional Tweet from me, here’s the correct account information:

https://twitter.com/DebiTaylorHough

Allergic to the world …

Allergic to the World

Finally catching my breath after a crazy day yesterday. Took my daughter in for food allergy testing in the morning and we found out she has TEN(!) additional food allergies! Not just sensitivities or intolerances but actual allergies.

Blah. So in addition to the other things we already knew about (peanuts, gluten, mushrooms, etc.) she is now officially allergic to the world. The woman doing the tests said she’d never seen anyone test positively to so many items. Special, huh?

My daughter also had a reaction to the testing itself and ended up sick and wiped out all day yesterday — thought for a bit we were going to go visit the ER. That’s enough excitement for one day, me thinks.

Now to figure out what on earth she can still eat! :-/

The newest items on her allergy list are:

1. Milk
2. Eggs
3. Apples
4. Peaches
5. Pork
6. Shrimp
7. Soy
8. Strawberries
9. Tomatoes
10. Tuna

She’s allergic to basically our regular shopping list.  :-(